


Unfinished

by rhodrymavelyne



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:14:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28584801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Hannibal left Miriam and Will behind with a feeling of being unfinished, something Hannibal himself is well aware, particularly with Will Graham. Alana Bloom, on the other hand, feels she has unfinished business and a reckoning of her own with Hannibal Lecter, as she tries to help Miriam Lass work out of some of her trauma in therapy and realizes that Hannibal used her, Alana Bloom, yet again and she was blind to it...
Relationships: Alana Bloom/Hannibal Lecter, Alana Bloom/Will Graham, Miriam Lass/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Unfinished

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during Apertivo except for the flashback which takes place right when Miriam Lass disappeared/was kidnapped. I don't own Hannibal but for months, it has owned me.

Sometimes Hannibal considered what might have been. He didn’t like the Accademia nearly as much as he does the Bargello in Florence. Too many of the egg-bound masses flocked to the Accademia, sucking away its magic with their chatter and the flash of their cameras around the David, like paparazzi chasing a porn star. 

Some of the magic would have been waiting to be rediscovered if Hannibal had visited with Will Graham at his side. Hannibal often found himself picturing the absorbed expression on Will’s face, studying not the David, but Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures.

“They’re like me,” Will whispered to Hannibal in the visualization, pricking not only at his conscience but his sense of aestheticism. “Trapped in a half-form, unfinished.”

“I suppose this is my fault,” Hannibal acknowledged in a way he seldom does. “I left you in that state. I failed to free you.”

“Will the form that emerges be anything I’ll recognize?” Will turned his luminous gaze upon Hannibal, reflecting them back with his eyes. 

“What you are and will be is a work of art.” Hannibal offered the one assurance he give. “Isn’t it better to finish becoming than to be left unfinished?”

***

“I’m unfinished,” Miriam murmured, closing her eyes. “Two years I was his captive. He broke down my defenses, got inside me, and left me unfinished.”

Each word was like a blow to Dr. Alana Bloom, a penance she endured for admiring, following, loving, and letting the darkness of Hannibal Lecter inside herself. Worse she allowed it inside Will Graham in all his fragile vulnerability.

You pay for your bad choices. You can’t just let them be absolved, washed away along with your sins. You have to pay for them. 

Was it her parents or the teachers at her Christian boarding school who’d told her this? Alana had always found comfort in civilization’s structures of law and order, even when she found them repellent. This was a contradiction, one she often thought about far too much. 

Once she’d thought about everything too much. When she’d finally decided to act upon her feelings, she’d paid for it more painfully than she'd ever imagined. No, Dr. Alana Bloom couldn’t go back to being the woman who thought too much. She owed Abigail Hobbs, Hannibal Lecter, and the window that much. Not to mention the patient who’d turned to her in her wounded desperation. 

Miriam Lass had also acted upon her feelings without thinking. Once in hunting down the Chesapeake Ripper, only to get caught. Second in shooting Dr. Frederick Chilton when she believed him to be the Ripper. 

Both Alana and Miriam were paying for their actions. 

All of that might have been part of Hannibal’s design as Will often muttered. 

“I’m still unfinished.” Miriam opened her eyes, gazed up at the ceiling of Dr. Bloom’s office. “I feel like I’m struggling to get out of a trapped state, yet I fear what will emerge from the trap.”

“What do you think will emerge?” Dr. Bloom kept her voice very soft, reassuring. The same voice she’d used with Abigail. Not that it had been much use with Abigail, any more than her other methods. Not when she was pitting them unwittingly against Hannibal’s influence. 

Don’t think about Abigail. Don’t think of how you failed Abigail and how she paid for your failure and paid you back for that failure. 

Alana swallowed her anger, misery, and the nagging sensation of being an imposter, a failure as a psychiatrist. It had been Hannibal who’d been the imposter. Only that was an over-simplification of the truth as much which concerned Hannibal Lecter was.

Enough. Dr. Bloom couldn’t let herself get tangled in such complexities the way Will Graham had. Perhaps even Jack Crawford had allowed them to hobble him more than he should have. Both men had been scarred by friendship with Hannibal Lecter because of Alana. She had to do more than take responsibility for that. Alana had to make certain this tragedy, this blood bath she, Will, and Jack survived and Abigail hadn't led to some closure for the survivors, preventing future tragedies. 

This didn’t mean Alana Bloom didn’t want revenge. Looking at the wreck of a once purposeful young woman with a bright future ahead of her made Alana hunger for it. 

Miriam paused as if she was the therapist, allowing Dr. Bloom to finish her train of thought. A reminder that Miriam Lass was trained in psychology herself even if she was out of practice. A humbling reminder for the therapist who kept getting distracted from her patient by her own problems. 

“I don’t know.” Miriam sat up, changing the subject abruptly. “He brought me clothes. A long-sleeved yellow shirt. A green cashmere sweater. White silk pajamas. Everything fit perfectly. Everything was something I might have picked out myself, if I had the money. There were times when I wasn’t myself, I didn’t feel like a prisoner. It was more like I was in the middle of a dream and nothing which happened mattered, because I’d soon wake up safe, in a quiet room.” 

A long sleeved yellow shirt. A green cashmere sweater. White silk pajamas. Oh, she remembered those garments. They’d all come from Neiman Marcus. Alana ought to know. She’d helped Hannibal pick them out. 

***

Three Years Ago

Alana Bloom had been looking for a sweater herself, deciding to indulge a little. What a surprise to find Dr. Lecter in the same store, especially when he’d been pestering her about those Ph.D. candidates. 

“Hannibal!” She smiled and glanced at the woman’s sweater he was holding. “I didn’t think this was your color.”

“It’s not.” Hannibal smiled back, appreciating the joke while remaining completely unabashed. Sometimes Alana could only look on and admire his sang-froid. “I’m not sure if it’s hers either.” 

“Hers?” Alana gave him a mischievous glance. “My, my. Does this mean the rumours that you’re having an affair are true?” 

“Those rumours claim I’m having an affair with you.” Hannibal met her gaze, a tiny smile of his own to play upon his lips. 

“Well, you can’t expect rumours to be accurate.” She grinned. 

“Certainly not.” Hannibal nodded at the sweater. “What do you think?”

“Why, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, are you consulting me on a matter of taste?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I am honored.”

“Alana, I have great faith in your taste,” Hannibal said, not looking away. Was there a measure of heat within the courtly attentiveness?

Down, Alana, she told herself, and while you’re down, make sure he doesn’t get the wrong idea about your flirting. Flirting with Hannibal was only too easy. She’d have to watch that if Hannibal was in the middle of something with someone else. 

“In answer to your question, that sweater is very pretty, but you’re not shopping for me, but your mysterious her.” Alana gave a slight shake of her head, but didn’t lose her smile. “Choose something you think she would like.”

“That’s the problem.” Hannibal ducked his head in almost boyish display of bashfulness. “I’m only just getting to know her. I’m not sure what she’d like.” 

“Well, what does she look like?” Alana asked, looking at the display of sweaters.

“Slight, slender, and blonde, almost like a lead from an early 21st century TV show.” Hannibal cocked his head, glancing from the sweaters to his former student. “Stronger than she appears, practical in her choices with a budding taste she doesn’t wish to indulge because it’s beyond her means. I’d like to indulge it, if I can, without straying too far from her sense of practical comfort.”

Like a fist blow to her middriff, Alana remembered Miriam Lass, wearing an evening dress she couldn’t afford, standing next to Clarice Starling in a similar gown, confessing with a shamefaced grin she’d have to return the gown. 

Alana had sympathized entirely. Alana had often coveted gowns she couldn’t afford. How fortunate Hannibal had picked out a lovely pair of evening dresses for her so she could attend his dinner parties and not be ashamed, without any strings of obligation attached. 

Miriam might never have a chance to pick out evening gowns or have someone pick them out for her. Or sweaters or shirts. There was a yellow one hanging from a hanger which would have looked great with Miriam’s coloring. Only she’d never have a chance to wear it.

“Alana?” Hannibal was gazing at her with concern. “Are you all right?”

“Nothing.” Alana ran a hand over her eyes. “Only this lady friend of yours sounds a bit like a friend of mine, one who disappeared. One I was helping with a case.” She rubbed her face. “I suspect she was kidnapped. She may well have been murdered. Miriam’s direct superior suspects the same. Only the people above Jack Crawford refuse to acknowledge her as anything more than a missing person.”

“I’m sorry.” Hannibal reached out to touch her arm. “I didn’t mean to remind you of something so painful.”

“It’s all right.” On impulse, Alana reached out for the yellow shirt. “How about this? I’m guessing it would look great on the woman you’re shopping for.” She forced her to let out a choked laugh. How very Will Graham of her. “Even if Miriam never gets a chance to wear something like it, someone else will.”

“You never know.” Hannibal examined the yellow sweater. “Your Miriam may turn up eventually.”

“Thank you, Hannibal, but I doubt it.” Alana turned, swallowing her tears. “How much are you buying? Maybe some white silk pajamas would be good, too? And one of these sweaters in a maroon color.”

Hannibal inclined his head. “I’m open to suggestions.” 

***

“How did he know?” Miriam’s anguished question seemed to echo Alana’s own guilt. “How did he know what clothes to get me, what I’d like? It was as if he was already inside my head, getting to know me in little ways which should make me feel all the more violated!”

Alana tried not to wince. Just another circumstance where her blindness where Hannibal Lecter was concerned had hurt someone else. 

“He might found out things about you from others or guessed from your appearance what you’d like.” Oh, what a coward she was. Alana couldn’t tell Miriam the truth. “Hannibal Lecter is a master of taste and using other’s tastes to manipulate them.”

As she spoke, she considered her own words. Perhaps Hannibal’s taste could be used against him. Perhaps it could be used to hunt him down. 

Revenge was a real possibility for Miriam and herself if she allowed herself to follow his taste.

Alana regained a portion of her smile at the thought, unaware of how hard she looked. How unlike her former self. 

Miriam tried not to shiver at the sight of her face. It’s not like she couldn’t understand. She felt some of the same anger and she hadn’t had the close relationship with the Chesapeake Ripper Dr. Alana Bloom had. Not of her own free will. 

This made her wonder about Will Graham. Just how much of being part of the Ripper’s design had been his free will? He’d left the hospital and returned home, but he hadn’t returned to the F.B.I. headquarters. 

“How is Will Graham?” Miram asked, studying the other woman. “How is he dealing with…everything?”

“Like all of us.” Alana found her smile slipping away at the thought of Will. “Not very well, if at all.”

***

“We’re unfinished, aren’t we?” Abigail Hobbs murmured to Will Graham. Both of them were in Hannibal Lecter’s house, staring at his wall. 

Nothing in this place was unfamilar to Will Graham. The paintings gazing at him with solemn eyes, baring flesh which might have been meant to titilate other appetites than the ones most people thought of. 

What horrors lurked within the fridge, down in the basement? A crime squad had swarmed all over it. Will shouldn’t have been able to get in, but he’d flashed his badge at the guard outside. The clean-up was after all, over. Will wasn’t actually getting in anyone’s way. 

“Yes, and no.” Will looked up at a drawing. “We may remain like half-finished sculptures, never breaking out completely. We could choose that, if we wished.”  


“Is that you really wish?” Abigail gazed at him, blood trickling from her throat, but her eyes were as clear and direct as ever in their questions. “To leave things as they are? To let him leave us as we are?”

In the end, the truth was simple, even if he couldn’t explain it. “No.”

**Author's Note:**

> Affairs, elopements are often excuses Hannibal Lecter uses to cover his crimes. I realized the affair Alana thought Hannibal was having two years ago might well have been with Miriam...that is, he could have busy securing his captive in his hideaway, letting Alana think he was having an affair at that time. 
> 
> The egg-bound is a reference from Thomas Harris which I haven't been able to get out of my mind. :)
> 
> The Christian school and her parents are references to Alana saying she grew up in a religious background in Apertivo.


End file.
